Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen: Writing Your Understory

This week I was double-blessed. On Saturday, I participated in two writing workshops led by Oregon’s Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen, (the latter being a mixed-ages affair in which my nine-year-old daughter was also able to join in). Two days later, I had the pleasure of attending Paulann’s deeply sensual reading from her new book, Understory, (to be officially released on April 29th) at the Powell’s Books in Portland.

As an Oregon librarian who’s invited Petersen to lead a number of workshops for our community over the many years I have known her, I’ve had the rich privilege of witnessing firsthand the effect of Petersen’s gentle guidance on emerging poets.

Now I’d like to share some of that luscious experience with you.

What follows then is a small taste of one of the “springboard” exercises Petersen uses with her workshop participants. I invite you to use this as an opportunity to play with language and memory yourself, Paulann Petersen-style. Enjoy!

I

magine yourself seated at a table with others from your community who share your passion for what evocative words and phrases can express. And then, wandering about the room as she gives her gentle directions, imagine the poet laureate herself, rich voice humming as she floats from writer to writer, witnessing your creative progress and edging you still further on…

Now, the exercise:

1.) To begin, think of a month of the year that resonates deeply with you. (A time of the year when you are particularly attuned to an abundance of strong sensual details.) Write that month down.

2.) If your month was a color, what color would it be? Write down the name of that color and picture it. Feel it.

3.) If your month was a musical instrument, what musical instrument?

4.) And if your month was a tree? Write the variety of tree.

5.) If your month was a body of water, what body of water would it choose to be? (Be as specific as you can. Which lake, stream, puddle? Where is it located?)

6.) Now your month gets to be a piece of music. Can you hear it? Write the name of that piece of music down.

7.) Now take a deep intake of breath and smell the scent that your month brings to you. Is it orange spice? Vanilla? Gasoline? (Note that our sense of smell is the sense that is most intimately related to memory.)

8.) Now, imagining that month, that tree, that body of water, that instrument, that music, that color, that scent…put yourself in a particular location where as much of these elements can be experienced. Write down three things that you see.

9.) Write down three sounds that reach your ears from that spot.

10.) Quickly now! Generate a list of common concrete nouns, the first ten or a dozen that come to you (think of words like, window, shadow, twin, moon…). From that list, choose three of those words that most speak to you.

11.) Finally, think of one person in particular. Someone very well known to you. Put them in your location, in that month, with that tree…

13.) Share this exercise with a friend and the poems that flow from it. Celebrate them!

Paulann Petersen will be reading at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, to kick off her new book.

From Powell’s website:

As with a forest’s understory — the level of vegetation growing under its canopy — these poems bear the shadows of a darker realm. Informed by myth and archetype, Paulann Petersen‘s work grows close to the earth, frequently delving into the chthonic. Occasioned by a wide geography and characterized by a large embrace, Petersen’s work celebrates both the singular and the quotidian, both the sidereal and the earth-bound — including poems for her furrier grandfather, for a revered poet’s first spoken word, for Hinduism’s sensuality, for a star-map painted on deer hide. Here a reader encounters a voice steeped in the music of the English language, a voice intent on the musical possibilities of poetry’s open and nonce forms. In these pages, a reader finds a voice indebted to the power of metaphor — the capacity of metaphor to transform both language itself and the way we humans see this world. Understory (Lost Horse Press) is the sixth full-length collection of poems from Petersen, Oregon’s sixth poet laureate.

As this is National Poetry Month, we are taking this opportunity to highlight past articles featuring poets we admire:

"My paintings are allegorical, but I expect each viewer will bring their own interpretation to a piece. The question one asks depends on the individual interpretation. If it’s a superficial read of literal abuse or abasement, then that is the subject being addressed within the viewer. If there is a more complex interpretation stemming from one’s life experiences, then the piece becomes personal, and asks questions the viewer is interested in answering."

"If only I had parented differently, if only I had been a better child, if only I had been more desirable, then the addict would never have chosen their addiction over me. The truth is that addiction is a complicated process that no other person can be responsible for, only the addict. To believe otherwise is at the heart of codependency."
~Andrew Nargolwala, psychotherapist

"I was a little surprised to hear so many people express that they perceive my pieces as being intentionally disturbing. Wanting to explore the workings of the unconscious tends to make people feel uncomfortable. They imagine death...I like to think of insects caught in amber."

"A poet looks at the world a little differently from others, and so does a scientist. I am very fortunate to be both. I find beauty in the cosmological consequences of dark matter, as much as I do in the written and spoken word. I appreciate the beauty in Heisenberg's principle as much as Matisse's economy of line. I'm probably one of the few poets in the world who literally dreams about tensor equations."
~Samuel Peralta, physicist and award-winning author of Sonata Vampirica

"Fantasy by definition is an escape, and it was a way for me to avoid difficult situations and emotions in my adolescence; however, I don’t think of reading as escapism. I think the activities of daily life are more commonly an escape from difficult or strong emotions. It’s in literature and art that one can usually come into more direct contact with those things. That’s why art is so fascinating. Even fantasy books, ironically."

"No one lives a bloodless existence. Everything that is repressed eventually finds a way out, even if it is only in the deepest of unremembered dreams. Though I’d rather it was with honesty, acceptance, a bold step, forgiveness and joy. Otherwise we tend to get all twisted up. Art, like love, does keep us alive; and, like love, it has the power to return us to our humanity when nothing else can."
~Interview with British poet, essayist, author, John Siddique

"This is like a kaleidoscope creating different images," says the artist of his work. "Like sounds flowing through the four windows, creating a stereo panorama, full of excitement and anxiety."
~Leo Bugaev, photographer, Russia

Many of the sights and sounds we’re subjected to in our society are harsh and disturbing. Psychologically and spiritually toxic. Scenes of cruelty, vindictiveness, ugliness and pettiness saturate the media and poison the mental atmosphere. I like the fact that I am sending out into the world images, pictures, little visions, that may do a tiny bit to counteract all that and communicate a sense of beauty, gentle humanity, grace, even holiness. It makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile in this sad, sad world.

One of the gifts of Aleah Chapin's body-of-work is the idea that true intimacy is achieved first and foremost by revealing oneself honestly. That through vulnerability we are able to deeply connect. One’s imperfections can actually make connection with others deeper, stronger. More real.

"When I make a photograph, it has the feeling of a miracle. Almost like a zen thing. The good pictures, I can’t take full credit for them. You don’t make a photograph so much as receive it. I wander around with my eyes open, and I’m just hoping for the best. Sometimes things that you’d never think would be special, you just hit upon, not fully understanding at the time why."
~Gary Briechle, photographer, Rockland, Maine

The former dockyard worker from Hiroshima decided that instead of creating one enduring piece to serve as metaphor for a love never-ending, he would construct a series of temporary installations meticulously fashioned from the painstakingly slow arrangement of so many tiny grains of salt.

"I was a little surprised to hear so many people express that they perceive my pieces as being intentionally disturbing. Wanting to explore the workings of the unconscious tends to make people feel uncomfortable. They imagine death...I like to think of insects caught in amber."